Fighting despair

From the depths of despair, O Lord,

I call for your help.

Hear my cry, O Lord.

Pay attention to my prayer.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,

who, O Lord, could ever survive?

But you offer forgiveness,

that we might learn to fear you.

I am counting on the Lord;

yes, I am counting on him.

I have put my hope in his word.

 -Psalms 130:1-5

 

Tonight, I am in despair. Things have happened to my family that are heartbreaking. In the past, I would have let this despair consume me. It's a struggle now not to do that even now. Despair is easy. It's easy to give into the doubts and the sadness instead of releasing.

 

Tonight, I have decided to release my despair to the Lord. He has promised us great things and I have faith that He will deliver them. I can not know the purpose or depths of God's plans so the things that cause me despair right now may be for good in the long run.

 

Tonight, I let go of my despair and trade it for the peace of God. 

Cries for help

O Lord, why do you stand so far away?

Why do you hide when I am in trouble?

The wicked arrogantly hunt down the poor.

Let them be caught in the evil they plan for others.

For they brag about their evil desires;

they praise the greedy and curse the Lord.

The wicked are too proud to seek God.

They seem to think that God is dead.

Yet they succeed in everything they do.

They do not see your punishment awaiting them.

They sneer at all their enemies.

They think, “Nothing bad will ever happen to us!

We will be free of trouble forever!”

 

Psalms 10:1-6

 

 Recently I've noticed a lot of posts from my friends questioning where God is when there are so many who suffer. They ask how can a God answer the prayers of those who need nothing and yet He does nothing for those in abusive situations. This is a concept I have frequently struggled with and I still struggle with it. It had even recently come up during a church service. The pastor mentioned how even back in the Psalms, these cries can be heard. When I look back at my life so far, I can see times where my prayers, when I did pray them, weren't answered and I was frustrated, upset, etc. at the time. Looking back on it though, I'm glad I didn't get those prayers answered. Most of them were selfish. 

Looking on a larger scale, for I've not always believed in Jesus and there was a period of time where I believed but was angry with God, I can see how in the end, those who are "wicked" and should be punished do sometimes actually receive their misery in this lifetime. I also have seen how well taken care of I am and how much happier I am without those desperate and selfish prayers being answered.

I have an aunt and uncle that I don't consider family. I am related to my uncle by blood but it isn't a strong tie. In fact, the only tie that managed to hold us together passed away 5 years ago today. My Gramps, his father. This couple were horrible relatives. Everything was always about them and their material goods. It was always frustrating to see them have "everything" and be such miserable people but still be succeeding. They decided to ignore our family until Grandma was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly they were on-site, hoping to collect something from her passing. Then they were gone again. There was always this attitude of superiority with them. I remember them acting as though they were helping me by giving me clothing that she didn't want anymore and commenting on how I needed to learn to dress from someone with a better sense of style than my mom. 

All the time I remember thinking how unfair it was that they were such massive jerks and yet had all this money and stuff. Then when Gramps died, they were even larger jerks *and* were manipulating the estate to favor themselves. It got to the point where I couldn't let my mom tell me what they were doing because I would get so angry that I couldn't function.

So what does this have to do with this verse? I have been trying for months and months to read the Bible every day. I've got an app on my phone and everything and yet my follow through really sucks. Once again, I've reset this particular plan that has me reading the entire Bible in a year, which I've never done before. It's a couple of chapters and a Psalm every day. This was Wednesday's Psalm.  It's really struck a chord with me. I've learned to put faith in the Lord and to stop worrying about material possessions. I'm no longer afraid of what people like my aunt and uncle think or what they will do to me. No longer do I fall apart in rage because of the unfairness of it all. There is still anger and frustration but I can still function through it and find ways to move past it. Having God not answer my prayers to just get rid of these two people, I've grown closer to Him and have grown as a person, which I think is a much better lesson.

Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.

Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.

You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,

so mere people can no longer terrify them.

 

Psalms 10:17-18

 

 

Love and Marriage?

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.
⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^{[b] 6} it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

I'm certain nearly everyone, no matter what their faith, has seen some of the above verses. I know I've seen it printed on wedding programs of at least two weddings I've been to, if not more. When I was in college, one of my long-suffering room mates showed me these verses to help me realize that not every flutter of the heart is love. I didn't listen very well but today I know that she truly loved me as a friend for she put up with so much from me. I'm not writing about that sort of love though.

Last week, I celebrated my first wedding anniversary. It's been a bumpy road, which is apparently true of most first years of marriage, unless you live in a different time zone for most of your first year married. There have been a few doubters of this marriage, but thankfully there have been more supporters of it. 

I've learned a lot about love over the last year.

Before I was married, I had some friends try to intervene and tell me that getting married was going to be a bad thing though I'd do it anyway, just to prove myself right. I still feel the hurt at one friend writing that I had been in a two year relationship with someone I supposedly loved and then fell in love with someone else and then had a short relationship with someone else I loved before meeting my husband. It stung because she was using it as an example of a downward spiral in my life and how I was headed towards disaster. It also stung because of why I had loved each one of those men was a bit selfish.

Here's the thing this friend didn't understand. My love was true to these past relationships but it was an earthly and self-centered love instead of a godly and self-sacrificing love. I loved them because it made me feel good and it helped me to try to fill up the emptiness I had inside from keeping my distance from God. Could I articulate this at the time? Nope. That would have been easy. I had to figure it out first. All I could say at the time was that I did love them. It's not easy to listen to anyone talk about how they love all of these people though so I understand the doubt.

Years ago, I annoyed the guy I was dating at the time because of my stance on marriage. I thought it was ridiculous to marry because you were in love. There were plenty of other reasons that were much sounder than love as love, especially the early, exciting kind of love, changes. Having love is more of a bonus than a requirement. This conversation would usually happen after I had read some book on the history of marriage or of the wife. He would then tell me that he wasn't going to talk to me about it until I stopped reading books that gave me weird ideas. Looking back it was hilarious but at the time I was furious.

When I was getting ready to get married a year ago, I thought of all of the logical reasons to get married to my husband:

• We'd have a dual-income and he works a well paying job where he is in high demand.
• He owns a house, which is much more reliable than renting. Plus, there'd be a garden and someone to help with the unending list of house responsibilities.
• He has kids, so instant family! No pregnancy or birth for me involved!
• Less food being wasted. I pretty much stopped grocery shopping for a while because cooking for one is depressing and trying to buy for one is frustrating.
• Improved credit score. I didn't realize that this would happen at the time but it's definitely been a cool perk.

If I'm to be honest, none of these were the reason why I knew I was going to marry him. These were more of the bonus effects of marrying him. I knew I was going to marry him because I loved him in the second love I mentioned above. I already had God in my life so I wasn't trying to fill the emptiness with someone or something else. Instead, I had a heart full of God's love for me and I knew I could love someone else. 

In the past relationships, the love was conditional. There was always a reason to love the other person because they did something or gave me something. I know that sounds wrong but if I truly look closely at those relationships, that's what it came down to with each one. I wasn't willing to sacrifice anything for these relationships.  I was with one guy 3 different times, the last time lasting almost 2 years and it never worked out. One of the big reasons was because of where he lives, which is not somewhere that I want to move. He didn't want to move to where I am without a job, which is very sound and I approve of that. But you have to wonder how much I really love someone if I'm not willing to change my life for them. 

For my husband, I've changed a lot of things in my life. He has asked for none of the changes. The changes have come about as I've grown from him challenging me to grow. I swear less. I eat better. I'm more active. I gave up my cats because I didn't have time for them. I moved to the other side of the cities even if the side I was on was much cooler. I don't expect him to do anything in return for me love. That's mostly true. I'm still human and I still want and expect him to do things but in the pure essence of my love, I do things for him because I love him. It is hard but it gets easier.

One of my good friends has listened to me over the last months as I've started to grow in my marriage. One of the things she has said has become a mantra for me. "God didn't give us marriage to make us happy. He gave us marriage to make us holy." Someone else I know has mentioned that God draws us to someone who is our opposite so that we can learn and grow from being with them. I think both of these things are very true.

I've started to love and appreciate looking at different translations of Bible verses. The copy of the above verses are from the English Standard version. Here's verse four from the New King James' version:

⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

1 Corinthians 13:4

I prefer "Love suffers long" over "Love is patient". Patience gives me the image of someone waiting quietly for someone or something to happen. From my personal experience, that is not what happens in marriage. The other person doesn't just sit back and wait for you to grow. No, it's more like love causes strife while hoping that the other person gets a clue without you having to use force on them. You continue to love regardless of what the other person is doing. 

I know that this can be dangerous territory and easily be misused in abusive situations. If there is abuse, physical, mental or emotional, get out. As someone who grew up in that environment, that isn't love and continuing to be in a situation like that isn't loving them until they change. You can't change someone who is abusive. God is the only one with the power to change someone. I mean this more in the sense that you continue to love someone even when they put the toilet paper roll on backwards or interrupt your work day with random, useless trivia. Those are things that can be worked on.

Pray for June 1, 2013

Lord, thank You for my marriage. Please let me be a strong and loving wife. Protect our marriage from those who would try to tear it down. Let our marriage shine Your light and show Your love. Help me to remember what you intend marriage to be and how you expect us to love, by serving. Amen. 

Shedding the unwanted

Many years ago, when I was about 15, I took up the faith of Christianity. Things were fine in my safe bubble of high school.

Then came college. College was hard. It was harder when I was fighting depression without knowing it. I went from a support structure that believed only you knew where you stood with God and they were there to help you get to the next step of it, to being surrounded by people who suddenly knew what God was thinking about me. Not all of them were like this. A few, very close friends, who I mistreated through my depression, expressed concern that I was disconnecting with God but they never told me that God had told them that I needed to do more of anything. I was disconnecting. It was hard and I wasn't very deep in my faith. When the depression hit the hardest, I decided to hate myself and everything about me, including God.

Years past and I found myself longing for God but too afraid. I felt I had done too much wrong to go back to that path.

This coming August will make two years since I really prayed again. Since then, I have found a church and found my path but bigger thing have happened. The more time I have spent in prayer and allowing Christ to be the lead in my life, the more my life has changed.

Things I use to like, movies, music, I no longer do. I don't find them funny anymore but rather tasteless. In someways, it is disappointing because I have good memories associated with these things but in other ways, it feels so good to shed that skin and find the changes in me.

One of the biggest changes is that I've decided to not go to CONvergence again. My first year was....interesting. It wasn't healthy but then at that point, neither was I. The person I was then would still have done the same things over. The person I am today...well she understands why this younger me did those things but she disagrees with the "logic" behind them because it was emotionally driven. Some things were good like removing myself before having a complete emotional meltdown in public. That was probably the only good decision that weekend. I went back the next year and it was different. I spent more time taking care of my friends' dogs than at CON and there was no drinking. I missed the next two years to spend with my family after recent losses. I went back in 2011 and volunteered and had a great, sleep deprived time. I didn't go last year because of family commitments.

This year I was already debating about not going. I really didn't feel the desire to go. Between going to other conventions (Chicago TARDIS and USITT) and the fact that the theme and guests don't really appeal to me (okay, this year's theme does appeal but it doesn't seem to go with the guests and I suppose after Chicago TARDIS, having a British theme without a whole bunch of Brits (or Tony Lee) is a bit of a let down), it didn't seem worth going. I then discovered that my favorite band of All Time was playing in the area that weekend and I know someone who works at the space.

On a whim, I decided to check out the programming to see if maybe I would go on Friday before heading out to see my band. Nothing really stood out until I got to the evening sessions.

I understand that there is kink in the sci-fi community. It makes sense that eventually there would be something about it. Then I came across a panel on animal penises. The original wording has changed but when I looked at it back then it said "they are freaky and weird, let's laugh at them" or something similar. Immediately I felt a sense of distaste. Why would I want to be associated with a science fiction and fantasy  convention that has a panel on animal penises?? Yes, my first D&D group did have an argument over the penis of a duck (it was actually related to the game play; as a note, there are some people you just don't argue with as they will find you the information to prove that you don't know what you're talking about; no, I wasn't the one arguing about the duck penis either). Yes, I stage managed a keynote speaker who has had a TV show made about animal sex. But all of those had appropriate settings and it was relevant to what was happening around it. This panel just seems crass and unneeded.

All of that plus the increased party atmosphere have led me to decide I can no longer afford to attend this event. I imagine there will be some ill-will from others but I've learned a lot about boundaries in the last couple of years. Going will cross a boundary with myself to protect myself from negative influences. I don't need to be around all of the drinking. I have depression. Alcohol is an easy answer to feel better for a moment but it only makes the depression worse. In my experience, most people don't respect being told "no thanks, I don't drink" and will continue to pressure until you cave. I don't believe I would be in this place if I hadn't started to seek out God and let Him become an active part of my life. I have friends who write daily blogs with reflections and prayers. I'm starting this blog to have not only a place to help me to grow but to also make a public statement about my reasons for withdrawing from CONvergence.

In looking for words to help me, I turned to the Bible. There's this great website that also has a Bible app, which I use to look at different translations. I ended up coming across this article which helped me to feel solid in my decision. To those who are my friends who will read this, I'm not looking down or judging you no matter how this may come across. This is about myself and how I wanted to be associated and what influences I want to open myself up to. If I'm going to go to a science fiction and fantasy convention, that's what I want it to be about. If I want to talk about odd animal penises, I'll just call my sister who is a vet.

³³ Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”^{[d] 34} Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. 1 Corinthians 15:33-24

I can no longer go to what I feel is an inappropriate event. I know that there is more to it than a handful of panels but I cannot content myself with simply saying that I'll just not go to those panels. I need to remove all of it so that it doesn't become one more temptation I can't handle.